North Carolina may soon join the ranks of states taking action to protect children from obscene materials and performances. This would certainly address the lion’s share of drag shows intended for children. It would also force schools and other organizations to take a closer look at books designed to “groom” children by introducing them to sexual behaviors.
Under current North Carolina state law, it is a Class I felony to “intentionally disseminate obscenity,” regardless of the age of the recipient or audience. But under a bill passed unanimously in the North Carolina Senate (SB 579) Monday, any “violation of this section committed knowingly in the presence of an individual under 18 years of age is a Class H felony.”
As the Associated Press reported:
The punishment in North Carolina for distributing what’s defined in state law as obscene literature or performances could be higher when done in a child’s presence in legislation that the state Senate approved unanimously on Monday.
The measure, which now goes to the House, was billed on the Senate floor by one of the chief Republican sponsors as an effort to protect children from obscene materials. That can include pornography.
“This is a simple update that addresses some of the more disturbing trends we’ve seen in recent years,” GOP Sen. Buck Newton of Wilson County said in a news release after the vote. “Our society is heading in the wrong direction and this bill says we’re not going to let children face such corruption.”
The article continued:
Current law makes it the lowest grade of a felony to intentionally disseminate obscenity. The bill would raise the felony by one level if the obscenity is “committed knowingly in the presence” of someone under 18. The higher level of felony means an offender could receive active jail time on a first offense, whereas the penalty based on the current law would be probation, a fine or some other kind of community punishment.
State law defines obscene materials in part as something that depicts or describes certain types of sexual conduct in a patently offensive way, lacks serious literary or artistic value and describes sexual matters that an average person would find “appeals to the prurient interest in sex.”
The Senate’s unanimous passage of the bill is noteworthy. In states all across the country, such bills have seen strong opposition from Democrats. Perhaps this bill was helped along by outrage caused by reports of a March 22 community-college drag show in Winston-Salem attended by high school students as young as 14. Like many community colleges, Forsyth Technical Community College offers dual programs allowing high school students to work on earning college credits alongside their high school education.
A community college hosting a sexualized performance where a man dressed as a woman in lingerie dances around in the presence of children would already cross lines that should be firm barriers to such public — and taxpayer funded — perversion. But — as the late-night infomercial says — wait, there’s more. During his performance, the man-in-lingerie straddled and caressed a high school student. The whole sordid episode was caught on video, and that video was publicized (with the young girl’s face blurred out) by Libs of TikTok.
As the Winston-Salem Journal reported last month:
Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools will meet with Forsyth Technical Community College on Thursday to talk about revisions to its memorandum of understanding weeks after a drag performer straddled a high school student during a Pride event on campus in March.
Superintendent Tricia McManus told the school board on Tuesday that after the meeting with Forsyth Tech officials, she will bring a revised agreement to the school board for its approval in May.
WS/FCS’s Early College and Middle College are based at Forsyth Tech, giving students access to its facilities.
Snippets of a video from the event surfaced on social media. It showed a drag performer briefly straddling a female student whose face was blocked out. Afterward, the student laughed and hugged the performer before walking away.
The school district apologized that students in its schools were exposed to an “inappropriate dance.”
Well, at least the school district conceded that public displays of child molestation are “inappropriate.”
Under the current law in North Carolina, that drag queen could be charged, but it is not likely that would ever happen. Even if he were charged, he would almost certainly get a very light punishment. Further, it would be almost impossible to charge the organizers of the event.
With the state Senate having passed changes to the “obscene literature and exhibitions” statute, the bill will now go to the State House, where it is expected to pass. Once that happens, such drag shows would be a dangerous gamble for organizers and performers.
What is needed is for more and more parents to demand that their states take action so that the day will come when drag shows for kids will be nothing more than just one of those things future generations will read about with shocked disbelief.
